Blake Lively has won a legal battle as a judge dismissed claims that her lawyer had threatened to reveal private messages from Taylor Swift in the “It Ends With Us” case.
The actress had earlier sued Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment, prompting his $400M countersuit involving her and her husband, Ryan Reynolds.
Taylor Swift, summoned as a witness, has denied any involvement in the case, while Blake Lively’s team has criticized the tactics of Justin Baldoni’s team, considering them a mere publicity stunt.
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Judge Strikes ‘Irrelevant’ Claims Against Blake Lively By Justin Baldoni’s Lawyers
On Thursday, May 15, Judge Lewis J. Liman approved Lively’s request to dismiss accusations that her lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, had made threats to disclose Swift’s personal messages unless the singer publicly showed support for the actress in the “It Ends With Us” case.
The motion was approved just hours after Gottlieb refuted the claims, which had been submitted by Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, in a letter based on statements from an unnamed source.
Lively’s legal team had filed the request the previous day, urging the court to dismiss the damaging letter from the record.
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In the official order obtained by the New YorkPost, Judge Liman called the filing “improper” and “irrelevant,” stating that it served no legal purpose and was instead an attempt to “promote public scandal by advancing inflammatory accusations, on information and belief, against Lively and her counsel.”
The judge further noted that the document appeared crafted to spark “press uproar by suggesting that Lively and her counsel attempted to ‘extort’ a well-known celebrity.”
He made it clear that allowing the letter to remain on the docket would not benefit the court and would reduce the record to a “reservoir of libelous statements for press consumption.”
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The Actress’s Lawyer Slammed ‘Categorically False’ Claims Involving Taylor Swift
Baldoni’s attorney stirred controversy after alleging that not only did Gottlieb threaten to leak Swift’s text messages, but that Lively also asked Swift to delete their conversations, claims supposedly gotten from an anonymous source.
Gottlieb wasted no time in rejecting the accusations, calling them “categorically false.” Speaking to NYP on Wednesday, he said, “We unequivocally deny all of these so-called allegations, which are cowardly sourced to supposed anonymous sources, and completely untethered from reality.”
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The lawyer went on to criticize the legal tactics of Baldoni’s team, saying, “This is what we have come to expect from the Wayfarer parties’ lawyers, who appear to love nothing more than shooting first, without any evidence, and with no care for the people they are harming in the process. We will imminently file motions with the court to hold these attorneys accountable for their misconduct here.”
Following the judge’s swift ruling, a spokesperson for Lively added: “It took the court less than 24 hours to see through Mr. Freedman’s irrelevant, improper, and inflammatory accusations, strike them, remove them from the court, and warn Mr. Freedman that further misconduct may be met with sanctions.”
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Justin Baldoni’s $400M Legal Battle With His Co-Star
Lively first filed a lawsuit against Baldoni in December, accusing him of sexual harassment during the production of the 2024 film “It Ends With Us” and of orchestrating a campaign to damage her reputation.
In response, Baldoni, who directed and starred in the film alongside Lively, launched a $400 million countersuit against the actress and her husband, Ryan Reynolds. His legal claims include defamation, civil extortion, and false light invasion of privacy, among others.
Both parties have denied each other’s allegations, but the legal battle recently pulled Swift, after the Grammy-winning artist, who is godmother to Lively and Reynolds’s three daughters, was subpoenaed as a witness.
She was mentioned repeatedly in Baldoni’s countersuit, which alleges that she and Reynolds were present at a crucial meeting between Lively and Baldoni at the couple’s New York penthouse.
In a bizarre twist, the countersuit also claims Lively referred to herself as “Khaleesi” in a text exchange with Baldoni and dubbed Reynolds and Swift “my dragons,” referencing characters from “Game of Thrones.”
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Taylor Swift’s Reps Blasted The Subpoena From Justin Baldoni’s Team
In response to Baldoni’s team subpoenaing Swift, a representative for the singer dismissed the notion of her involvement.
“She did not score the film, she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film, she did not even see It Ends With Us until weeks after its public release, and was traveling around the globe during 2023 and 2024, headlining the biggest tour in history,” Swift’s rep shared.
They also emphasized that the pop star’s only connection with the movie was allowing the showrunners to use her song “My Tears Ricochet.”
Blake Lively’s Legal Team Also Slammed The Taylor Swift Subpoena
Lively’s legal team condemned the subpoena in a statement to People Magazine, criticizing the opposing side for treating a serious case like a spectacle.
“Mr. Baldoni, Mr. [Steve] Sarowitz, and the team continue to turn a case of sexual harassment and retaliation into entertainment for the tabloids,” the statement read.
It continued, “Going as far as suggesting that they sell tickets to a concert venue— Madison Square Garden—to witness Ms. Lively’s deposition, to subpoenaing Taylor Swift, a woman who has given a voice to millions all over the world. This is a very serious legal matter, not Barnum & Bailey’s Circus.”
